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On planet Earth, fire is usually a transient phenomenon—even the strongest of wildfires will eventually succumb to human and/or meteorological intervention. But the same can’t be said for the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan, known colloquially as the “Gates of Hell.” This natural gas field has been burning continuously for decades thanks to its steady supply of seeping methane, and in that time, this devilish pit has become one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions despite its location in the middle of the Karakum desert, roughly 160 miles north of the capital city of Ashgabat.

Turkmenistan’s authoritarian leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has previously stated that he wants to snuff out the Gates of Hell once and for all (though the latest pronouncement came years after he reportedly went off-roading around the crater). Now, a new report suggests those efforts may be bearing fruit. Last Thursday, officials in Turkmenistan said that gas being emitted from the pit has diminished three-fold, though the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that no timeframe for this gaseous decrease was provided. This news is in line with previous reports last year that satellite observations of the Gates of Hell showed a 50 percent decline in emissions.

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Biased agonism to treat diabetes and obesity.

Agonists of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) have been used for diabetes and obesity treatment. Mechanism of action and signaling of these receptors are of paramount importance.

The researchers investigate the impact of biased cyclic AMP (cAMP) signaling with a dual GLP-1R/ GIPR agonist.

Biased GLP-1R and GIPR agonism with GLP-1R/GIPR agonist, CT-859 leads to better and prolonged glucose lowering, greater food intake reduction, and weight loss than unbiased agonism.

Biased GIPR agonism synergizes with GLP-1R on food intake suppression and weight loss. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666&#4…0229-0 https://sciencemission.com/Biased-agonism-of-GLP-1R-and-GIPR

Rodriguez et al. investigate the impact of biased signaling with a dual GLP-1R/GIPR agonist. Biased GLP-1R and GIPR agonism leads to better and prolonged glucose lowering, greater food intake reduction, and weight loss than unbiased agonism. Biased GIPR agonism synergizes with GLP-1R on food intake suppression and weight loss.

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Many different types of cells in the body have a tiny projection known as a primary cilium. These cilia act like little signaling hub that can capture information about a cell’s environment and relay it to the cell, ultimately coordinating some cellular responses. The functions of cilia are well known in a few cases, such as in development, where they are crucial to the regulation of certain processes; or in some disorders called ciliopathies, in which genetic mutations lead to ciliary dysfunction and human disease.

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Nanoplastics can compromise intestinal integrity in mice by altering the interactions between the gut microbiome and the host, according to a paper in Nature Communications. The study explores the complex interactions of nanoplastics with the gut microenvironment in mice.

Nanoplastics are pieces of plastic less than 1,000 nanometers in diameter, which are created as plastics degrade. Previous research has suggested that uptake can disrupt the gut microbiota; however, the underlying mechanism behind this effect is poorly understood.

Researcher Wei-Hsuan Hsu and colleagues used RNA sequencing, transcriptomic analysis and microbial profiling to analyze the effects of polystyrene nanoplastics on the intestinal microenvironment when ingested in mice. They found that nanoplastic accumulation in the mouse intestine was linked to altered expression of two proteins involved in intestinal barrier integrity (ZO-1 and MUC-13), which could disrupt intestinal permeability.

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Self-driving cars will soon be able to “think” like human drivers under complex traffic environments, thanks to a cognitive encoding framework built by a multidisciplinary research team from the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

This innovation significantly enhances the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs), reducing overall traffic risk by 26.3% and cutting potential harm to high-risk such as pedestrians and cyclists by an impressive 51.7%. Even the AVs themselves benefited, with their risk levels lowered by 8.3%, paving the way for a new framework to advance the automation of vehicle safety.

Existing AVs have one common limitation: their decision-making systems can only make pairwise risk assessments, failing to holistically consider interactions among multiple road users. This contrasts with a proficient driver who, for example, can skillfully navigate an intersection by prioritizing pedestrian protection while slightly compromising the safety of nearby vehicles. Once pedestrians are confirmed to be safe, the driver can then shift focus to nearby vehicles. Such risk management ability exhibited by humans is known as “social sensitivity.”

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An international team of scientists has published a new report that moves toward a better understanding of the behavior of some of the heaviest particles in the universe under extreme conditions, which are similar to those just after the Big Bang.

The review article, published in the journal Physics Reports, is authored by physicists Juan M. Torres-Rincón, from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Santosh K. Das, from the Indian Institute of Technology Goa (India), and Ralf Rapp, from Texas A&M University (United States).

The authors have published a comprehensive review that explores how particles containing (known as charm and bottom hadrons) interact in a hot, dense environment called hadronic matter. This environment is created in the last phase of high-energy collisions of atomic nuclei, such as those taking place at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

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The discovery of two new genetic disorders comes from a study delivered through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Manchester Biomedical Research Center (BRC) and The University of Manchester and could provide answers for several thousands of people with neurodevelopmental conditions around the world.

Since the breakthrough, 18-year-old Rose Anderson from Stretford in Manchester has received a diagnosis of one of the newly discovered conditions.

Rose has been known to the team at the Manchester Center for Genomic Medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) for nearly her whole life, although a precise diagnosis for her seizures and has proved difficult to find.

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